The Stories of Girls Who Couldn't Be Magicians

Episodes 1-3

Did you know that people used to write things out by hand instead of typing them? It's crazy, right – why would you waste time using a pen and paper when you could use a voice command to activate an app that would do the same thing? You may as well tell people to heat a woodstove to cook their food in a “quick oven” instead of just popping it in the microwave!

I'm being facetious, but if you take the magic systems present in The Stories of Girls Who Couldn't Be Magicians and reframe them as above, you'll see that maybe things aren't so far off between them. According to Rettoran's prestigious magician-training program Magumi, magic can only be performed with “magic notebooks” that are prefilled with apps for spells, and only those deemed worthy of the program can use them. But as our heroine Kurumi knows, there's another way to cast magic: by drawing spells by hand, using a magic pen. And that, it seems, can be done by anyone with the tools and a little bit of practice…which makes it look awfully like Rettoran (and possibly the leaders of the magicians) is busy creating an artificial gap to keep those they deem worthy of becoming magicians and those they don't. It's not about waiting for your letter to arrive by owl; it's about someone deciding who gets a letter based on things that don't appear to be aptitude.

There's no clearer evidence than Kurumi. Like other magical heroines before her, most specifically Witch Hat Atelier's Coco and Little Witch Academia's Akko. (We shouldn't forget Tweeny Witches' Arusu, although that link's less obvious right now.) Kurumi encountered a magician as a small child. This witch gave her a love of magic, a magic notebook, and the dream of becoming a magician herself one day, something she began studying almost immediately. Kurumi was so gifted that, without attending a Rettoran prep school, she managed to get the highest scores on the Magumi mock exams. Why was she rejected from the Magumi program when it came down to the real thing? She could have made careless mistakes in her anxiety, but given how hard we know she worked, that doesn't pass the sniff test. It seems much more likely that someone didn't want her in the program.

Who that someone is and why is the open question of these three episodes. Strange people are keeping an eye on Kurumi – and her classmate and fellow Magumi reject Yuzu – and this doesn't seem to be because they like her adorable Lily Hoshino character design. Instead, they seem to be throwing opportunities her way. A strange magical attack during orientation, a magic tree that pounces on Yuzu and her subordinates in episode two, and finally the way she's snatched up by the underground Magic Research Club after she's refused entry to the Magumi version of the same. The fact that the teacher for the Standard (non-magic) class conveniently vanished on the first day of school is very suspicious…it almost seems like it was arranged so that Ms. Suzuki, a magician who uses the old-fashioned pen-and-ink form of spellcasting, could take over.

Although this is a magic school story (not a magical girl story, because Kurumi doesn't transform; yes, I will die on this semantic hill), it also seems interested in exploring artificial class differences. Its deceptive pastel picture book world is also one where the privileged mage class shows off how special they are at any opportunity, only to firmly slap down those like Kurumi who seek to join them. (I wanted to smack that teacher who told her it was just “common sense” that she couldn't join his club.) Ms. Suzuki, who announces her intention to make all the standard student magicians, is powerful enough to go against established policy. More importantly, she's keeping a close eye on Kurumi and likely Yuzu. Someone kept them out of the Magumi, and the elitist attitudes made me think it wasn't just a question of test scores.

Do the twins, one Magumi, one not, have an inkling of what's going on? That could be why they've voluntarily separated, as seen in the first episode. Who's the boy who turns into a King Charles Spaniel and talks to a cat? And why did Maki think she could sneak around carrying a tambourine? There's more going on here than pastel loveliness, and I'm very interested to see where the story's going.

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The Stories of Girls Who Couldn't Be Magicians is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.